Sherlock Holmes: A Musical Mind – Report
* 17 August 2015

Featuring music from some of the many screen incarnations of
Sherlock Holmes, as well as pieces of classical music directly and
indirectly referenced within the pages of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles'
original stories, Sherlock Holmes: A Musical Mind featured the
debut of David Arnold and Michael Price's score for the BBC Series
within the hallowed rotunda of the Royal Albert Hall.

Barry Wordsworth conducted the BBC Concert Orchestra, with the
concert introduced by Matthew Sweet, accompanied by readings from
the original stories by Mark Gatiss - delightfully, both were
dressed in period costume, and between pieces sat in rich red
leather chairs on the left side of the stage, soaking in the
orchestra in what was most likely the best pair of seats in the
house.

Opening with a thunderous rendition of Hans Zimmer's main theme
and further selections from the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes
movies, the concert encompassed selections from Patrick Gower's
score the classic Granada series, the Frank Skinner's music from
the Basil Rathbone film The Voice of Terror and Miklos Rozsa's Main
Title for Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

Amongst all the scores came pieces that appear in one form or
another within the pages of canon. Some revealed intriguing
insights into the mind of Holmes, particularly the ethereal work of
composer Orlande de Lassus, while others extrapolated the
performances of Irene Adler, with mezzo-soprano Christina Rice
(Again, in period dress) performing pieces by Tchaikovsky and
Rossini. Violin soloist Jack Liebeck appeared throughout the
concert, but delivered a fantastic, no doubt exhausting rendition
of NiccolòPaganini's Violin Concerto No.2 - 3rd Movement 'La
campanella' that brought the house down. The classical pieces
wrapped up with a bombastic rendition of Wagner's The Ride of the
Valkyries, included based upon Holmes and Watson's mad dash to a
Wagner night at the conclusion of The Adventure of the Red Circle -
we're no doubt assuming they enjoyed the piece as much as we
did.

The concert concluded with an elaborate suite of pieces from the
BBC series, beginning with the Main Title, before segueing into
John's Theme, swiftly followed by Moriarty's Theme. The most
thunderous stage of the piece featured Prepared to Do Anything, the
dramatic closing moments of The Reichenbach Fall, with gigantic
percussion that eclipsed that heard on screen - all of which
instantly dropped off as the music returned us to the immediate
aftermath of Sherlock's apparent suicide in Blood on the Pavement.
That acted as the perfect lead into Irene's Theme, before the suite
concluded with the galloping thrills of The Chase from A Study in
Pink.

Within the grand space of the Royal Albert Hall, this concert
provided a real treat thanks to its mix of the classic and
contemporary - a selection that in many ways reflected the
character of Sherlock Holmes to near perfection.

Sherlock Holmes: A Musical Mind is available to listen to on BBC
iPlayer until September 14 2015, on the links below.